Thurs 9th – The Cycle of Washing Ones Clothes & The Importance Of Being Clean

Well, my washing has just come out of the machine at 2200, which isn’t bad, seeing as I put it in there at 1115 this morning..! No, I kid you not! 11 odd hours of washing! My main frustration being that it is a front loaded machine, so you can’t just open the door or you flood the kitchen! And when it came out, it was dripping – not even spun dry! I was the guinea pig in my house and was told by others (after the fact) that Cycle One took for ever. I must admit on my part that I did toss the instructions aside! It’s a washing machine for farks sake! Granted, this is probably the first time that I’ve ever used a front loader but if I can get to 70m in the air in strong winds and hang off truss etc. I should be able to master the simple task of washing ones clothes! Wrong, wrong, wrong! Adam has since done a load that took 40 mins and came out how you would expect clothes after a spin cycle! Oh well, provided endless entertainment for the boys & girls, especially as there was 8.5hrs at work in between!

The Washing Machine Incident is typical of our Accom. So far, and remember, until 5 days ago these were brand new villas, we have the following racked up in #7 – none due to anything we’ve done, despite the gatherings on our stoop:
1) Cupboard door in kitchen attached by one hinge – if you don’t know about it, it’s quite a hazard if you try to open it!
2) Turn on the main light in the downstairs bathroom & the entire LX goes out on the ground floor.
3) The kitchen power points work some of the time!
4) The two front legs on one of our couches have snapped off.
5) The toilet seat cover has fallen off.
6) Our water has stopped working twice!
7) Washing Machine (has to get a mention!)

There’s other, smaller things but the above is what’s happened in #7. Others have nothing wrong at all and some are on par with us. My favourite is sitting on my stoop (we no longer call our porch a porch, we figure a stoop is a far better name for a place where people gather to drink beer!) one morning and this lady coming down the street swearing her head off basically saying she was going to put some kind of plumbing device somewhere where there aren’t supposed to be blockages because this was the 4th time that her toilet flooded instead of draining…! Yep, that’s life in Doha, you never quite know what your gonna get – Forrest Gump led a VERY sheltered life if he can only compare to chocolates! The above general feel applies to everything – taxis, deliveries, driving and so on. The best thing to do is to not think that you have things figured out and then, nothing really surprises you!

Work today was outright dumb, plain and simply! They are certainly trying to find ways to fill some kind of hours for us. I don’t know, we kind of like this paid holiday type thing! We went in, watched the 3D DVD of the Ceremony again and Prem (Caller) told us who might be doing stuff in certain places and that there was nothing planned in some places and then, that it was all highly likely to change! Some of us went in early to angle grind off some pipe at the FOH (Front Of House) spots. But, the onsite angle grinders (which had been booked for us by you know who) had mysteriously been booked elsewhere! Didn’t matter anyway as the entire West side of the stadium where we needed to work was without power! Me, Kev & Paul still climbed over the Arch to cover sharp & nasty bolts that stick out into our path with foam. Pretty windy again but kinda getting used to it now.

Well, I was summoned about 10mins ago as there is a gathering again on the stoop! Apparently a contingent of Frenchies are here! Haven’t met them yet and I have only had two beers for the night so far. I’m pretty sure the other Usual Suspects are well on their way! Me too soon I guess!

There were 3 Stoop hotspots tonight, a blend of all Villas. Quite nice and relaxing but quite! We’ve also adopted 2 x stray cats – one did get found in Kev’s bag in his upstairs bedroom! We’ve named them Freddie & Roy but we’re not allowed to love them (by love I mean pet) as they are apparently highly diseased – despite what the picture above shows! Hmmm, I really should go see if Adam is frothing at the mouth…..